


English Lesson

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, post strike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2019-09-27 20:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17168885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Itey is an apt student, but David doesn't know how to teach.





	English Lesson

“Eat,” David prompted, from where he sat on the floor of the newsboys’ lodging house. Itey, who sat across from him smiling, didn’t miss a beat.

“Is transitive verb,” said the Italian boy, looking satisfied with himself. David, for his part, looked more than satisfied. He always got like that whenever what he as teaching seemed to be sinking in. In all truth, that was the only reason that Jack knew Itey had answered correctly. The two of them were two hours into the grammatical nonsense David had came over to teach, and it might as well have been Latin grammar as English, as far as Jack cared.

“Yes! Great!” David beamed. “It’s a transitive verb. What about brush?” 

"Transitive,” Itey answered. Snitch, from his bunk, sighed dramatically. Jack understood exactly where he was coming from.

“Dance?” asked David.

“Intransitive,” his new best friend proudly proclaimed. Jack flipped over on his side, trying to pretend he wasn’t bored out of his mind, and hungry to boot. Another ten words in, though, and Jack’s patience ran out. 

“Why does he have to learn this anyways? What’s that gonna add to conversation? I can just see it now ‘Good morning Jack, I wash my hands with the booger. Wash is intransitive verb. In Italia we transitive under the…” Jack would have gone on, but both David and Snitch were glaring at him, and he supposed he deserved it for taking a jab at Itey, when he wasn’t even the one who was being insufferable. “Look,” he said, dropping the Italian accent that he’d just been doing a terrible imitation of, “All’s I’m saying is his English is already great without you teaching him stuff that I don’t even know about." 

David was quiet for a minute, as was Itey, who seemed at a loss for how to respond. Jack was just starting to feel really bad about that, when David muttered something that sounded suspiciously like obviously under his breath.

Jack raised an eyebrow, “Obviously what, Dave?” 

David, in typical David fashion, stared him down for a long time, looking about ready to explode. Jack gave him a look, and that was all that was needed to start the words pouring out of David’s mouth.

"Wash!” David said, a lot more emphatically than the word warranted. “It’s transitive! It takes an object! You wash something. You need to know that it’s transitive because it reminds you to add an object, so your sentence doesn’t sound stupid. Now if you just listen to us for half a minute… Itey! What kind of verb is ‘run’?”

"Intransitive." 

"See, run doesn’t take an object. If you start giving objects to verbs that shouldn’t take them, you’ll sound like an idiot. For example, let’s say the object is…" 

David glanced around the lodging house as if searching for inspiration, his gaze finally landing on Skittery, who was reading a book and trying to act like he wasn’t listening.

"Let’s say,” David continued, “that the object is polar bear. ‘I wash the polar bear.’ is a great sentence, because wash is a transitive verb, so you have to wash something. Same goes for ‘I brush the polar bear.’ or even ‘I eat the polar bear.’. On the other hand, if you say ‘I run the polar bear.’ or ‘I dance the polar bear.’ your sentences make no sense, because run and dance are intransitive, so they shouldn’t take an object." 

Jack was quiet for a minute, thinking it over.

"So, Dave, what about if I change the polar bear for you. Can you be an object?" 

David nodded, “Yeah. Most nouns and pronouns can.” 

Jack grinned. “That’s great. ‘Cause if you don’t shut up, I’m going to run you and the polar bear out of town.”

David didn’t answer right away, but the way that his brow furrowed made Jack feel like he’d just won a million bucks at poker. 

"That’s…” David started.

“Right,” Skittery interrupted from above them. “Just next time leave my polar bear out of it. Poor kids gone through enough grief." 

Jack flashed a grin up at Skittery, “Glad to oblige. Guess Dave here’s going to have to be the object for anything transitive I decide to do, since the polar bear ain’t up to helping out no more.” 

The rest he left stored away for later, thinking it best not to say in the lodging house. Jack wasn’t sure how far the lesson had sunk in, but he knew that since kissing was something you usually had to do to something or somebody, there was a good chance that that verb was a transitive one.


End file.
